Ornella Baganizi (she/hers) was born in Canada, but is originally from Rwanda. In the Unites States she considers Maryland home. She graduated from American University (Class of 2019). Ornella’s academic interests include Africana Studies, colonial and post-colonial histories of Africa, and decolonization theory. She is eager to explore how oral history can be used as a tool to decolonize education specifically as it relates to producing knowledge of Africa that is nuanced and inclusive of Africans and personal memory. 

While in undergraduate studies, she studied abroad in Arusha, Tanzania where she started learning Swahili through a Boren Scholarship, and Nairobi, Kenya. Her senior year she designed and led students on a two-week service-learning trip to Arusha, Tanzania to explore the country’s history of pan-Africanism and the interplay of marginalized identities, such as women, the youth, and people of the Maasai community. After graduating, Ornella moved back to Tanzania, this time to Mwanza, as a Princeton in Africa Fellow to work for an NGO called Mainsprings.

Her senior year she designed and led students on a two-week service-learning trip to Arusha, Tanzania to explore the country’s history of pan-Africanism and the interplay of marginalized identities, such as women, the youth, and people of the Maasai community. After graduating, Ornella moved back to Tanzania, this time to Mwanza, as a Princeton in Africa Fellow to work for an NGO called Mainsprings.

In this program, Ornella hopes to research and archive her family’s history; from her grandmother being one of the many mixed-race children in Rwanda separated from their mother and brought to live in Belgium, her father being the first person in his family to received a PhD, and many of her family members experiences during the 1994 Genocide. 

Ornella writes poetry and has recently delved into photography. She hopes to cultivate her artistic practices and incorporate these mediums into her thesis project.

Ornella speaks French, English and Swahili. She is excited to join the 2021 OHMA cohort, meeting new people and learning about their stories.